The Nobel laureates and young researchers who met in Lindau this summer came from all over the world, but they had one thing in common: physics. We filmed five debates on issues that matter to the current generation of researchers. Is dark matter real? How can we solve the looming energy crisis? How is physics perceived by the public? Watch the trailer for a taste of the discussions and disagreements that emerged.

The Hubble Space Telescope has shown us distant galaxies and planets orbiting other stars, deepening our knowledge of the Universe. Nobel prizewinner John Mather works on Hubble’s replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope. He believes we are in a golden age of astronomy. But the young researchers he meets are not convinced. There are too many unanswered questions, they say. For example: what’s causing the accelerated expansion of the Universe? Hear how Mather and fellow laureate Brian Schmidt, who first […]

In the next 100 years or so, we will run out of fossil fuels. In this film, Nobel laureates Mario Molina and Robert Laughlin challenge three young physicists to think seriously about the energy endgame and their children’s futures. Molina believes we can solve the looming crisis through international collaboration — as happened after he showed that CFCs were damaging the ozone layer. Laughlin disagrees. He wants engineering solutions, and says nations will go to war unless we find them.

The morning after CERN announces the discovery of the Higgs particle, three young physicists sit down with Nobel prizewinners George Smoot and Martinus Veltman to digest the news. The students see it as another success for the standard model of particle physics. But Veltman, who helped to shape this model, is cynical. Moreover, Veltman contends that there is no such thing as dark matter. See how the shocked students and Smoot respond to Veltman’s scepticism.

The majority of Nobel prizewinners are men, including the two in this film: Harry Kroto and Dudley Herschbach. This gender imbalance worries the young researchers who join them at a German school to debate the state of science education and how science is perceived beyond the classroom. Kroto tells them about a creationist museum in the United States, which brings up the issue of public trust in science. The young researchers wonder what role they can play.

Working out what happened in the moments after the Big Bang is difficult. Scientists can come up with theories, but in the end they are useful only if they can be tested. Nobel prizewinner Robert Laughlin is passionate about experiments. He challenges the students in this film, and laureate David Gross, to come up with ways to test our big ideas about the Universe. The two laureates make a bet. Watch the film to find out more and to decide […]